There are three fundamental properties of radio, electromagnetic, waves...phase, frequency and amplitude. Amplitude is a measure of signal strength. Frequency is a measure of how many times a wave oscillates per second. Phase is a measure of angular displacement.

Radio waves are naturally analog, they have a value for every moment of time. When transmitting data these days we're talking about encoding digital information. We need to alter one of these natural properties to represent this data stream.

Since you mentioned 3G...
All mobile telecommunications networks will have a Radio Access Network, which feeds into the Core network. In my experience all modern microwave radios use a modulation scheme known as QAM, quadrature amplitude modulation. In this scheme both the phase and amplitude of the carrier signal are altered to encode data.

For example, with a 4 QAM scheme there are four symbols in your modulation library. So, each one is capable of representing two binary bits. With 256 QAM each one can represent 8 bits. Using more sophisticated modulation schemes is a great way of increasing the throughput of your link.

On the air interface between your mobile phone and your local base station, the method of encoding data depends on the technology being used. For example, with 2G GSM a combination of time and frequency multiple access is used. For 3G and 4G we used Code Division Multiple Access.

There are lots of different ways of encoding data with radio waves but the theory hasn't really changed much at all. It's just a matter of altering the state of a carrier wave so that the change can represent a binary 1 or 0.

Wow...that's really interesting. Non-american here so it's only a term you'd hear in movies etc. Fo some reason I always thought it was because that's the shape you'd make while trying to cross the road. You know, walking a bit parallel waiting for a break in the traffic, then perpendicularly across...a rough 'J' shape. Hence, J-walking. Go figure...

You've got enough good advice here to think about for a week. Might have been mentioned to you before but Suicidal Ideation can sometimes be an independant thing worth looking into. I've been to a similar dark place, the fact that you've done enough research to know that Nitrogen is the way to go says it all for me. Also worth bearing in mind that some medication can help out (a bit), there have been some great improvements in SSRIs recently. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat.

Right...so avoid putting the corpse in the back garden. I know decomposing flesh smells rather horrible, but I figured a few feet of earth would dull the stench. I heard that some police dogs are trained to find bodies...super-sensitive at pick up the smell.

In the US, at what point are you just referred to as "American"? As a country of mainly immigrants...does everyone have a sort of ethnic label attached? "An Irish-American was arrested for theft, a German-American stole a car, an Israeli-American is a local hero." Why use labels for everyone if the people involved arre citizens of the same country?